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Did Mitch Joel Miss the Mark On His 10 Twitter Users That Marketers Should Follow?

Recently Mitch Joel wrote about “10 Twitter Users That Every Marketing Professional Should Follow.“ While I think Mitch was spot-on with some of his recommendations such as Josh Bernoff, Avinash Kaushi k, and Jeremiah Owyang, I believe his list focused too heavily on pure Social Media influencers. It was a great list if a Brand Manager only wanted to learn about Social Media.

In my eyes that misses the big opportunity. The real value of Twitter isn’t just to learn about Social Media…it is also a way to learn about being a better digital marketer. After all, Twitter and other tools are a way to get in your 10,000 hours of practice in order to be great at what we do. And marketers have a lot more on their plate than just Social Media when it comes to digital.

Given that, I wanted to give my own take on:

“10 Twitter Users Every Brand Manager Should Follow To Be A Better Marketer.”

Listed in no particular order:

Barry Judge – Best Buy CMO

Barry is a must follow for marketers for two reasons. First off, he is the Chief Marketing Officer of one of the world’s largest retailers. If he has time to embrace Twitter, there is no reason you don’t as well. Second, he shows the power of using the “Wisdom of the Crowds” to grow your business by openly inviting people to attend brainstorming sessions and even critique Best Buy’s not-yet released advertising.

John Battelle – Founder of Federated Media

John is one of the true innovators in the digital space. He was the original Managing Editor of Wired Magazine, Founder of the Industry Standard and now the CEO of Federated Media. And in his spare time he wrote the definitive book on Google / Search Marketing and started the Web 2.0 Summit / Expo with O’Reilly Media. I think those are reasons enough Brand Managers need to be paying attention to him and what he has to say about Conversational Media and Marketing.

Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zappos

Honestly there is nothing I can say about Tony that hasn’t been written before. Every business person should learn how to take a page from the Zappos book about creating an amazing company based on putting your customer first. This is a guy who is truly building his company tweet by tweet.

Kara Swisher – Wall Street Journal & AllThingsD.com

As the “digital voice” for the Wall Street Journal, Kara is often the source of breaking news in technology and Silicon Valley. She is also the co-host of D: All Things Digital Conference, which is often called the premiere digital executive conference.

Pete Blackshaw – Nielsen Online

Pete is a marketer’s marketer. In ‘99 he helped P&G be named Interactive Marketer of the Year and then went on to start Planet Feedback, one of the earliest advocates of using the Internet for listening and engaging with consumers. He’s a guy who dreams big and his Twitter stream is always filled with thoughts that will make you think.

Scott Monty – Head of Social Media at Ford

Before moving to Ford, Scott was at the “virtual agency” Crayon with Joe Jaffe. In 2008, he took the challenge to lead up Social Media, just in time to deal with the disaster that has become the auto industry in the past few months. Scott’s handling of that situation and his internal guidance has helped Ford stay in better shape than his rivals. He is fighting the good fight to show colleagues that “firewalls are for cars, not social media.”

Peter Kim – Former Forrester Analyst

When Pete was at Forrester, he wrote some of my favorite pieces of research such as Agency 2.0. Last year, he left Forrester to join a start-up that has the mission of “Working on changing the world of work.” In addition to his great insights, Pete also pushes us all to not get stuck in the “echo chamber” where bloggers and social media advocates are just talking to themselves.

Ian Schafer – CEO of Deep Focus

There are a lot of interesting people from the agency side but Ian stands out from the crowd and is my personal favorite. First off, his agency is doing some of the more interesting digital work out there, including some breakthrough stuff for HBO. But Ian is also willing to push the boundaries of innovation, such as his experiment to auction off sponsorship of his Twitter profile.

Frank Eliason – Comcast Cares

Frank is the Comcast Director of Digital Care. In plain English, you can call him the man that single handily changed the image of Comcast customer service. Every Brand Manager should follow his lead in show genuine desire to help consumers and solve their problems.

And the one repeat from Mitch Joel’s list (borrowing his description since it sums up this last person perfectly):

Avinash Kaushik.
Kaushik is the analytics evangelist for Google, author of Web Analytics – An Hour A Day and Blogger over at Occam’s Razor. His tweets add a whole other dimension to the world of web analytics, but more importantly, marketing.

Note – Chas Edwards also pointed out a list from Forbes on the 10 Most Influential Twitter Users.

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Charlene Li outlines for the Future of Social Networks

One of my favorite minds in the realm of Social Media has to be Charlene Li. Best known as the author of Groundswell (read it if you haven’t already), Charlene has been making the speaking circuit in support of her new company, Altimeter Group. Her latest presentation, The Future of Social Networks, is a must read for any Brand Manager thinking about how advertising and marketing will fit in this new social world.

In this presentation, Charlene makes the point that in the future, Social Networks will “be like air.” Thanks to universal identity and sign-in, your friends will be wherever you need them… literally their recommendations and thoughts will be at your finger tips. Just as important, this social graph will help marketers provide more relevent information and advertising to consumers when and where they need.

[slideshare id=946988&doc=sfama-12209-1232733566144121-2&w=425]

Thanks to the folks over the Digital Design Blog for the lead.

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Even a Brand Manager needs their 10,000 hours of practice to be great

Bob Lefsetz gets it. And I’m not just talking about the music industry but business overall. He gets what it takes to be great in your industry of choice.

In his most recent letter, Bob rallied against a music industry that seems focused on young “prodigies”… overnight success stories who might have the talent, but haven’t put in the time or practice to really become great. His argument is based on Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” as he writes:

Innate talent, pure desire, they’re not enough. Sure, Mozart started writing music when he was six, but he didn’t compose a masterwork until he was twenty one, after he’d put in 10,000 hours of practice. How can you have accumulated 10,000 hours worth of practice if you’re not even close to twenty one? Turns out that’s the rule. You’ve got to have 10,000 hours

He goes on to write that it is NOT about age. It is about determination:

I’m not saying you’ve got to be old to make it, maybe you just have to be doggedly focused. Not only on making it, but rehearsing, getting it right. The music industry has lobbied against this. It has not encouraged its stars to practice.

And it is in that last sentence that Lefsetz makes a comment that Brand Managers should pay attention to. Those that are great in their industries, be it sports, music or science are not great based on talent alone.

They are great because of the time they have put in time to being great.

Why does that matter to marketers and Brand Maangers? Why does it matter to our own careers? Well think about your competition, the Brand Manager running your biggest rival. Chances are the two of you have a pretty similar education background. And more likely than not, you both have similar resources at work. So how can you get an edge…how can you be the better Brand Manager?

If you believe Gladwell and Lefsetz have it right, you will get that edge through practice and focus. You will get that edge by throwing yourself at the task of being a better marketer. Lefsetz hints at how you can do this when he talks about Millenials and their use of technology:

Maybe the conventional wisdom is right, today’s kids do have a short attention span. Then again, they play videogames for hours, they surf online for days on end. That’s why your teenager is a computer expert, why he can run your machine at what appears to be light speed. Because it’s second-nature to him.

To make the comparison back, this means you need to make marketing second-nature by practicing, by putting in your 10,000 hours. You won’t get there in your day-to-day job activities. You need to go above and beyond. So with that in mind, here are a few ways Brand Managers can find their 10,000 hours of practice:

Start blogging: Seth Godin wrote that “Blogging makes you a better marketer because it teaches you humility in your writing.” I’d add that blogging is the best practice in marketing you can find.
Dive into Social Media such as Twitter: Twitter gets a bad rap from people that don’t fully understand it. For me, Twitter is practice. When I connect and talk with other marketers through Twitter, it is like being at marketing batting practice.
Volunteer your marketing brain power: I’d argue that spending 2 hours helping a non-profit with their marketing will teach you more than staying at work an extra two hours. And you get the added benefit of doing some good in the process.
Read everything and anything: Knowledge is power and the best form of practice. Make RSS your best friend and read what the best minds in business think on their blogs. Get involved in the conversations through comments. Read the top business books each year.
Meet new people: Take advantage of breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks to meet new people in your industry. Go to industry conferences and actually make use of them to network. Shake hands, have drinks and keep on practicing.

These are just a few of the ways I’m trying to get my 10,000 hours of practice at being the best at marketing that I can be. What would you add to the list? How are you practicing to be a better marketer and Brand Manager?

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A great video to illustrate change in the marketing landscape

Chris Wilson at The Marketing Fresh Peel, pointed out a great video by the German ad agency Scholz & Friends on how the world of Brand Management has changed from the 1940’s through today. It is a simple, insightful, and quick way for any Brand Manager to illustrate the need for change to their management.

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Start-ups need to invest in building brands, not just products - February 11th, 2010

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David Armano’s tips for Thinking Visually

I’ve mentioned before that David Armano is one of the bloggers that inspires Hard Knox Life thanks to his ability to capture complex thoughts through simple visuals. In his latest presentation, he gives us an inside look at how he comes up with those visuals, including these five tips:

Empathize: See the world as a child.
Memorize: Commit thoughts to memory.
Analyze: Take a step back.
Synthesize: Filter signal from noise.
Visualize: See it, then do it.

[slideshare id=929404&doc=thinkviz-1232315653281316-3&w=425]